On Thursday, Senators Scott Brown and Joe Lieberman introduced the Terrorist Expatriation Bill, which would strip the citizenship of any American, naturalized or native-born, found to have supported or joined a terrorist group. While the ruling could be appealed in court, the designation itself wouldn’t require any sort of hearing or that the accused be convicted of a crime. The person’s citizenship would simply be removed on the say-so of the State Department.
It’s understandable, after the recent Times Square incident involving a naturalized Pakistani, that Brown and Lieberman would seek to beef up anti-terrorism laws. But this bill is a misguided, opportunistic attempt to do so — and one that represents the most damaging, retrograde anti-terror legal ideas.
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It may be an effective campaign slogan to proclaim that terrorists should have no rights, but it leads to a deeply problematic set of policies. American citizens have legal rights to protect them against false government accusations; bills like the one that Lieberman and Brown are pushing effectively make people guilty until proven innocent. It’s a travesty of justice that’s offensive to basic American liberties.
There seems to be a basic misunderstanding here. We proclaim that ALL people have certain inalienable rights. It does not matter that you are a citizen of the U.S. or not. The miranda statement derives partially from this. It informs the listener of these facts and the person reading them so they understand too what rights they have.
Once proven in a civilian court of law by your peers of terrorist activities, if the sentence is to eject you from our country and your appeals are exhausted, then you may have citizenship stripped from you but this does not remove your inalienable rights as listed in the Bill of Rights. Nothing ever does.
Sorry neocons who believe otherwise but it never will be so, even if fascists control the government.